Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene

Fundraisers With an Edible Angle

Robert Peyton

Hogs for the Cause

UPDATE: A previous version of this blog post said Hogs for the Cause is this weekend. The event is next weekend, March 22-23. We apologize for the error.

Teaching kids how to grow, harvest and cook food is a noble undertaking, and it's one that deserves our support. There are a number of organizations fighting the good fight here in New Orleans, and one of them, Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, is having a fundraiser a week from today. Here is a bit of the press release:

Thursday, March 21st, the Edible Schoolyard NOLA will host An Edible Evening, our fourth annual garden party under the stars at Samuel J. Green Charter School.

Edible Schoolyard New Orleans (ESYNOLA) changes the way children eat, learn, and live at five FirstLine schools by integrating hands-on, organic gardening and seasonal cooking into the school curriculum, culture, and cafeteria programs. An Edible Evening has become a rite of spring in New Orleans. The garden party is catered by 25 of New Orleans' best restaurants and benefits Edible Schoolyard NOLA’s programs at FirstLine Schools.

Proceeds from the event have helped us:

Add more gardening and cooking classes, and nutrition education events;

Activate school wellness committees to improve health through eating well and moving more;

Create an Edible Garden and hands-on Teaching Kitchen at the new Gentilly site of Arthur Ashe, with classes for parents, too;

Expand the Dreamkeeper garden at Langston Hughes Academy, where we plan to double the amount of produce grown for children and their families this year; and

Tickets to attend An Edible Evening are $45 in advance and $50 at the door.

This is the fourth year that Edible Schoolyard New Orleans has held this fundraiser, and it's been steadily growing. This year participating restaurants include Bayona, Capdeville, Company Burger, Domenica, High Hat Café, Maurepas Foods, Palace Café, Red Fish Grill, St. James Cheese Company, Three Muses and a lot more.

Next weekend is the fifth anniversary of Hogs for the Cause, which raises money for families with kids suffering from cancer. It started as a pig roast attended by a few hundred people, but these days it's a major event, featuring bands you want to hear, beer you want to drink and a plethora of porcine products for your consumption. Despite the fact that I am allowed to be one of the dozens of judges for the competition aspect of the shindig, it is still worth your attention. Tickets are $20 at the gate, but still only $15 if you buy online. Either way, you're supporting a good cause, and in this case you're having a hell of a time doing it.

Whatever you end up doing this weekend or next, I hope the weather holds out and you enjoy yourself.

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Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene

about

Robert D. Peyton was born at Ochsner Hospital and, apart from four years in Tennessee for college and three years in Baton Rouge for law school, has lived here his entire life. He is a strong believer in the importance of food to our local culture and in the importance of our local food culture, generally. He has practiced law since 1994, and began writing about food on his website, www.appetites.us, in 1999. He mainly wrote about partying that year, obviously.

In 2006, New Orleans Magazine named Appetites the best food blog in New Orleans. The choice was made relatively easy due to the fact that Appetites was, at the time, the only food blog in New Orleans.

He began writing the Restaurant Insider column for New Orleans Magazine in 2007 and has been published inSt. Charles Avenue, Louisiana Life and New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles magazines. He is the only person he knows personally who has been interviewed in GQ magazine, albeit for calling Alan Richman a nasty name. He is not proud of that, incidentally. (Yes, he is.)

Robert’s maternal grandmother is responsible for his love of good food, and he has never since had fried chicken or homemade biscuits as good as hers. He developed his curiosity about restaurant cooking in part from the venerable PBS cooking show "Great Chefs" and has an extensive collection of cookbooks, many of which do not require coloring, and some of which have not been defaced.

Robert lives in Mid-City with his wife Eve and their three children, and is fond of receiving comments and emails. Please humor him.